


The Ice of the Isolated

by Kaiserkorresponds



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Hurt/Comfort, Lonely Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Protective Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sick Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Stuttering, The Lonely Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), The Magnus Archives Season 2, The Magnus Archives Season 3, Tim Stoker Swears (The Magnus Archives), Trapped, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiserkorresponds/pseuds/Kaiserkorresponds
Summary: "–and she had left me a few of her possessions, not that she'd had much, but I'd gone to her old flat to pick them up and it was so–""Cut it out, Jon. We already talked about this.""– so dark that I almost wished I'd brought a torch. But it was only half two in the afternoon, and midsummer as well. And I figured I'd just grab some books and go, only then–""Jon! For Christ's sake, stop it." Tim near shouted.Jon's jaw snapped shut abruptly, and he slumped forward, almost like a tiny army figurine with its plastic parachute cut by an ambitious child. He hit his head on the metal shelf as he fell with a sick thud, and his entire body crumpled into a heap on the carpeting."Jon!" Tim couldn't stop the cry from being pulled from his lips.--My take on the classic trapped together scene with the twist of Tim's anger, and the fact that Jon, without anyone knowing, has been being slowly consumed by The Lonely ! (And that to cope with it, has been obsessively reciting statements in hopes that it would stop The Forsaken !)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 253





	The Ice of the Isolated

"Will you stop that?" Tim snapped, the insistent feeling of irritation finally levering past his tipping point at the, in all honesty annoying, sound of Jon's muttering. "It's not gonna get us out any faster, whether you recite the entire damn archives or not." 

Jon glanced up, his dark eyes dull within the dim light. 

"Sorry." He mumbled roughly. 

There was silence for a handful of seconds. Broken only the faint creaking of the shelves around them, and the hiss of the ancient radiator echoing off the tiny walls of the document restoration room. 

The room they were currently trapped in, and had been trapped in for the past two hours.

"Number 4487215, Statement of Drew Capris regarding his encounter with The Skinner. Statement begins: I wasn't a drinking type of bloke, in fact, I–" 

"Jon." Tim snapped again, cutting off the rapid, near insane sounding, mumbling. "What did I literally just say?" 

Jon blinked heavily. 

"Cut it out with the statements already, it's bad enough to be stuck here without listening to some poor sod's trauma come out of your mouth." 

Tim leaned back against a shelving unit, watching Jon chew through the words. 

His own jaw worked in a series of annoyed tics as the seconds ticked by and Jon remained unresponsive. 

"At least tell me you still understand English." He finally muttered, just to break the thick silence. 

Jon blinked again, strangely sluggish. 

"Course– course, I understand Eng– Eng– English." 

"Could've fooled me." Tim said, a scowl forming across his face at Jon's stutter. It had been near almost always present since he'd known him, and worse with anxiety and exhaustion. The only time these days it fully went away was when he was reading a statement, and Tim refused to examine the implications of that. 

"I–" Jon stammered suddenly, "I– I, I don't feel well." 

Tim glanced back down at him. 

He was sat on the floor, his back leaned against a metal shelving unit, and his dark curls splayed out along the edges of the files. His face held the same pinched, terse look it always did and the twist to his mouth was the same, ever present, skeptical frown. His skin was possibly a shade paler than his dark complexion normally allowed, but nothing drastic. 

"You look alright to me." 

Jon's dark eyes tracked over his face, in a sluggish parody of his usual sharp glare. 

"I don't– I feel– feel cold." 

Tim huffed out a sharp chuckle. "Yeah, Jon. It's cold in here. That's not news." 

"But it's– it's freezing." 

Tim scowled. "Yeah, like I said. Cold in here. It's been cold for hours." 

"I–" Jon broke off with a vicious shiver. "Statement of Katrina Smith, events occurring on the date of November 27, 2015. Statement begins: It was so, so dark. So dark I couldn't–"

"Not this again." Tim muttered. 

–couldn't see anything, even my hand in front of my face. It was only a few days after my mum had passed away and–" 

"Jon." 

"–and she had left me a few of her possessions, not that she'd had much, but I'd gone to her old flat to pick them up and it was so–"

"Cut it out, Jon. We already talked about this." 

"– so dark that I almost wished I'd brought a torch. But it was only half two in the afternoon, and midsummer as well. And I figured I'd just grab some books and go, only then–"

"Jon! For Christ's sake, stop it." Tim near shouted. 

Jon's jaw snapped shut abruptly, and he slumped forward, almost like a tiny army figurine with its plastic parachute cut by an ambitious child. He hit his head on the metal shelf as he fell with a sick thud, and his entire body crumpled into a heap onto the carpeting. 

"Jon." Tim couldn't stop the cry from being pulled from his lips. 

"Fuck." He swore under his breath, and ignoring his own panic, immediately knelt beside Jon's prone form, rolling his tiny weight over to his front, and using one hand to smack at his cheek. 

Louder, he said. "Jon, come on, wake up." 

Jon remained dead to the world, his eyelids firmly shut, and his breath ghosting in shallow draws. 

"Jon, come on, wake up. What the fuck just happened here?" 

Jon gave no response. 

"Come on, Jon, I take it back. You can recite all the spooky shit you want till we're out of here. Just wake the hell up."

Jon let out a rasping exhale, and his breath was cold as ice against Tim's fingers. 

He jerked his hand back involuntarily at the freezing sensation. 

"Jon, you're scaring me." 

Jon's ice cold skin pressed against his knee, and his breath was near frosty as it ghosted into the air. 

Tim lurched to his feet and slammed his hands against the door. 

"Hey," He shouted, "Hey, anyone– is anyone there? We need help. Please, someone, you gotta help." 

Tim jerked his gaze back towards Jon's still unconscious, and near frozen body. 

"Anyone, please. We need help." 

He slammed his palms against the heavy door again, and jostled the knob roughly. 

It gave no more than a rattle and staunchly refused to give. The exact same at his first try, when they had first been trapped, hours ago. 

"Someone, you gotta help us. We're trapped." He shouted again into the near silence. 

He had tried screaming hours ago too, when they first realized the broken lock on the door had sealed them in. 

Only to give up within minutes after no response. It had already been far past working hours, at that point, and there wasn't much chance of anyone being around, much less able to hear. 

There was no telling how long it'd been since then, without either of their phones to track the time, but it had been at least hours if his own hunger, and Jon's rambling gave any indication. 

A night stuck in document restoration had been far less than desired, with the tiny space crowded by metal shelves, and it's barely heated air to preserve the ink on some of the ancient documents, but it had been a grudging possibility. 

Now it was terrifying. 

"Fuck." Tim shouted and slammed his hands on the door once more, only succeeding to send a sharp sting through his palms. 

"Jon, boss." He knelt back beside Jon's tiny frame. "You gotta wake up. We aren't getting out until morning, and I need to know if you're injured. Come on, buddy, you gotta wake up." 

Jon remained eerily motionless, and Tim swore he could almost see tiny wisps of fog from between his parted lips. 

Roughly, he shrugged off his jacket and laid it across Jon's chest, tucking the fabric loosely around his narrow shoulders and across his stomach. 

It laid almost comically large on him, but it gave the appearance that he was just asleep instead of unconscious, and that he could wake up at any moment. Like one of the naps he'd taken in the stacks back in Research one time after a three day work binge that had ended in him being exhausted, but grinning with success. 

Before the move to the archives. 

Before all of this. 

Tim shoved that thought away harshly, and knelt closer to Jon's shoulder, watching the faint rise and fall of his chest and the flicker of his eyes moving beneath the lids. 

He'd sit there all night if he had to, amidst the oppressive stacks of the statements, and in the biting chill that drifted from the vents, and from Jon, if he had to, if only Jon would wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> This is canon divergent, and follows the idea that if in seasons 2/3 Jon, instead of falling to a paranoia that fed The Eye, fell deeply into The Lonely without anyone knowing !!
> 
> My tumblr is @kaiserkorresponds if you'd like to follow me there !!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Ice of the Isolated: Podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28971117) by [rosy_cheekx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosy_cheekx/pseuds/rosy_cheekx)




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